Assessing Bank Reform

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The last decade has been both traumatic and revolutionary for the U.S. banking industry. In late 1990 and early 1991, the outlook for the banking industry and even the federal insurance fund that backs most of its deposits looked especially bleak. Several independent analysts, congressional watchdog agencies, and the federal government itself warned that the large number and size of bank failures would exhaust the resources of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for resolving bank failures and paying off their depositors.

Amid extensive proposals for deposit insurance reform, Congress enacted the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (FDICIA), one of the most important and controversial pieces of banking legislation of the last fifty years.

In December 1992, Brookings sponsored a conference, in conjunction with the Chicago Clearing House Association, to mark the first anniversary of FDICIA and to assess its impact.

This book features the papers presented at the conference and a summary of the discussion of the more than 150 participants. Representatives with diverse viewpoints met to consider and debate the wisdom of FDICIA and of future banking policy. The authors include leading academic scholars, current and former policymakers, and experts from the private sector. Their papers cover the intellectual and political history of the Act, how the Act was being implemented, responses of regulators and banks to the Act, and how banking regulatory and legislative policy should proceed. The book concludes with recommendations for future banking regulatory and legislative policy.

In addition to editors Kaufman and Litan, the contributors are James E. Annable, First National Bank of Chicago; Richard C. Aspinwill, Chase Manhattan Bank; Richard Scott Carnell, Senate Banking Committee; Anthony Downs, Brookings; Robert E. Glauber, Harvard University; William S. Haraf, Citicorp; W. Lee Hoskins, Huntington National Bank; Edward J. Kane, Boston College; Congressman Jim Leach, ranking minority member of the House Banking Committee; David W. Mullins, Jr., vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board; Kenneth E. Scott, Stanford Law School; Karen D. Shaw, Institute for Strategy Development; Barbara Timmer, former General Counsel, House Banking Committee, and Jay M. Weintraub, Merrill Lynch.

“"From the perspective of a healthy thrift forced to bear the costs associated in large part with regulatory inaction and forbearance, FDICIA with its focus on capital and prompt corrective action was a major step forward. Many of the essays collected here represent some of the best thinking on the issues of this landmark legislation." --Herbert M. Sandler, Chairman and CEO, World Savings & Loan Association”

"From the perspective of a healthy thrift forced to bear the costs associated in large part with regulatory inaction and forbearance, FDICIA with its focus on capital and prompt corrective action was a major step forward. Many of the essays collected here represent some of the best thinking on the issues of this landmark legislation." —Herbert M. Sandler, Chairman and CEO, World Savings & Loan Association

"Brookings has produced a definitive analysis of FDICIA, or what I call the 'Credit Crunch Enhancement Act of 1991.' This volume is required reading for anyone interested in how federal banking regulations impact the economy." —L. William Seidman, Former Chairman, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

"The book provides a clear account of where we stand on banking reform and how much remains to be done. I hope Mr. Clinton and the Congress might draw the lesson that it is time to complete the job, in the interest of the strong banking and financial system the country needs." —Paul Volcker, Former Chairman, Federal Reserve Board and Chairman, James D. Wolfensohn, Inc.

Robert E. Litan is a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and vice president for research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation. Among his many books is Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity (Yale University Press, 2007), written with William J. Baumol and Carl J. Schramm. George G. Kaufman is the John F. Smith Professor of Finance and Economics at Loyala University of Chicago. Among his many books is The U.S. Financial System: Money, Markets, and Institutions (Prentice-Hall, 1992).

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